URL blocking

Sometimes you need to download a useful program from the internet, say Google Talk, and install it on your PC at work. And suddenly you are confronted with company policies about certain url’s that are blocked. I very well understand that you shouldn’t visit the Playboy site during working hours, but sometimes these url filters really become annoying. Of course I could have downloaded Google Talk from a different site that wasn’t filtered, but there is another straightforward approach:

Just do a ping traceroute to the site you want to visit. I used this website to do that on-line.

Disclaimer: this approach is probably not going to work if your company uses a somewhat smarter url blocking program than mine. Secondly: I’m not encouraging anyone to visit sites that your company probably has blocked for a very good reason.

“Well, I’m pretty sure that URL block was there explicitely to keep you from downloading Instant Messengers, which are usually frowned upon if not explicitly forbidden in corporate environments.”
Actually Instant Messengers are not forbidden here. They are used all the time to communicate with colleagues within and outside to the company.

A common trick that works for non-shared hosts. Most content filters don’t block by IP simply because so many sites are using shared hosting plans, so blocking by IP leads to lots of incorrect blocks.

If the site provides SSL, you can use that to get around content filters as well.

And finally, if your company uses a blacklisting service (the school I work for uses SonicWall) they often times mis-categorize sites. Find the support page where you can request a re-categorization, and submit the blocked site.

And why a traceroute?? I think a ping should be enough to get the target ip. But this is a problem for countries with censored internet like the uae. In these countries it is not allowed to use a IP number instead the DNS Name.

I have that problem here, my Co worker doesn’t work I wish they’d get rid of him but they are trying to get us better benifits and pay. I blocked alot of sites he goes to (they aren’t suitable for the school district either) and he has recently turned to using the IP address to get to them. Bad for him is I’m not stupid and I read the logs, any site that comes up via IP I look and and block the IP. If this were a proper business each attempt at getting around it would be reported and eventually the person fired but meh.

I’m just griping I guess, at least I’m unfiltered and we don’t block sourceforge so I can get gimp sharp win 11 and the futures🙂